SHE'S taken more than two years at a cost of more than $5 million.

But shortly after her launch in two weeks' time, the sloop will begin making a contribution to the island that will prove priceless.

The pocket sailing ship will be used as a training vessel for young people ? not only to enable them to pick up useful nautical skills, but to learn valuable life lessons as well.

The initiative has been put together by the Bermuda Sloop Foundation (BSF), which has also pushed to raise funds for the scheme in the last few years. The Foundation's mission is to "excite learning in our youth and help them achieve a balanced, useful, high standard of education, personal development and community responsibility".

As a result, the Foundation hopes that Bermuda's youth will be able to be ambassadors for the island and also "reclaim our Bermudian spirit ? in a social and cultural sense lost in the onrush of globalisation and popular values".

The BSF believes that the sea, and sailing on her, teaches valuable lessons such as:

Respect for order and organisation. A thoughtlessly coiled rope may spell the difference between a successful manoeuvre and a tragedy. Everything has to be ready and in place.

Recognition of the need for a practical skill. A hitch that has been thrown a hundred times begins to throw itself automatically. Practice and repeated experience can spare us from fateful mistakes.

The essential value of planning ahead. We gather the rewards or pay the price for estimating, or neglecting to estimate, such things as the future effects of wind and tide.

The obligation to look out for our mates ? and to feel the comradeship of others looking out for you.

The survival value of staying calm in emergencies. Those of us who don't stay calm don't survive, or if we do, we don't return to the sea.

The clear necessity to tell the truth, no matter what the consequences. We tell the truth immediately because we know that silence and deception are the seeds of future calamity.

BSF executive director Malcolm Kirkland said: "We believe we need wholesale education transformation, re-engineering of our community clubs and war footing dismantling of the complacency that permeates this little island."

Mr. Kirkland said the BSF commissioned a report four years ago which suggested the school system was failing many youngsters.

"We continue to produce disconnected young people as efficiently as a production line. How many? We reckon 150 per year," he said. "There is abundant evidence that Bermuda's public schools have been failing behaviourally and academically for some time. Measurement has only begun recently in earnest. In 2004 the overall graduation rate was 53 per cent, with black males constituting the vast number of failed students.

"In a nutshell, we are advancing development of young people the synergy of traditional sail training, formal experiential learning and a personal teen development package ? The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens ? to be applied to both school and extra-curricular.

" is an innovative example of an increasingly regulated, global class of purpose-built, 'pocket' sail training vessel measuring under 24 metres on the water line with a capacity of 24 Student Crew. Built to American Bureau of Shipping standards, she will operate under the Bermuda flag.

"Historically, her Royal Navy ancestors were active in the 'slave patrol' in the early 19th century, arresting 'slavers" off West Africa and the Caribbean. She is iconic and will evoke pride in Bermuda within her student crews and, in so doing, within all of us."

The programme targets teens from the age of 14 who will operatein teams on a rotational basis, during weekends and vacations. Week-long expeditions, youth races and ambassadorial missions are also planned.

Students will have to specialise in a skill, be it in electronics, computer network servicing or galley supervision, and keep a personal log book of their development. The curriculum will also look at Bermuda's geography, geology, oceanography, meteorology, history and culture.

"The critical pre-requisite to learning is a culture behaviourally conducive to learning and where mentor behaviour is modelling," Mr. Kirkland said.

"The closed system aboard a ship disconnects the young person from his or her familiar surroundings ashore and provides a new community where he or she feels and understands the need for order and organisation, for authority and chain of command, for calmness in emergency, for patience and consideration and for literally depending on and trusting one another to survive and thrive.

"Our vision is to have real impact on the education and development of Bermuda youth. Therefore, measurement and sharing of findings are imperative. The focus will be upon student learning, skill set, personal development and team building.

"All participants will be responsible for keeping a personal log book over their multiyear development to document achievement over time."